200000 years ago?
The invention of language.
What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation?
31–40 of 67 posts
Re: What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation?
#32In terms of pure impactful science I'd say 1920-1960 or so. Quantum mechanics and everything it led to (modern chemistry, in particular) is the big one, but there was also relativity, the modern evolutionary synthesis, huge advances in statistics, the math of computing, and so much more.
I agree. The important advance in the first half of the 20th century was understanding how atoms work, and that knowledge lead directly to semiconductors, the nuclear industry, and laid the foundation for modern chemistry, materials science and all the analytical technologies than enable chemistry, physics etc (i.e. x-ray analytical techniques, mass spectrometers).
Something that I did not know until recently was that the "mineralogy" of steel was not understood until the 20th century. If you do not understand the phases comprising a material, it is difficult to relate bulk material properties to bulk composition.
Re: What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation?
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
seems to me most of that can be traced back to the electric generator/motor. Without it, the rest of them becomes impractical or impossible.
I think we could always find a thing that made the next big innovations possible. Newton said that we are standing on the shoulders of giants. I also wondered the other day if humanity could rebuild the current level of technology given a select team of our brightest and all available knowledge, but no tools or machines. We would have to recreate so much in lock step to event get to the most basic things. Just think…
I remember reading an interesting theory about that quote - Newton coming off as kind of a jerk in other contexts, this quote, the theory goes, was a veiled sarcasm towards Robert Hooke, his to-be archnemesis later in life who was also short of stature.
It seems, however, that this theory is not very well supported except for the general impression one might get reading about his behaviour in other situations - Newton doesn't seem to be the humble type.
Re: What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation?
#341870-1920. Electric light, automobiles, aircraft, radio, paved roads. Railroads everywhere in the developed world. Electric mass transit (trolleys, subways) in major cities. Tractors and combine harvesters on farms. Refrigeration. X-rays. In computing, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording company (later IBM) produced the first printing tabulator, the beginning of commercial data processing. Those 50 years held the grea…
I took a history of technology class and was shocked to find out how modern the turn of the last century was. In my head I guess I vaguely used to think electricity, radio, etc, was invented in the 1920s-1930s. I was shocked to learn stuff like electric street lighting being deployed in the. 1880s. And I never realized how extensively people relied on telegraph. Like there was a long time when it was an ingrained part of business communication like email is today.
Re: What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation?
#35The push for innovation is probably the greatest right now. However, I like to think the greatest innovations are those that make my own life simpler. There's: airplanes, cars, electricity, GPS and others. Innovation today, while technically impressive, is mostly making my life more complex, not more simple.
The average Joe see innovation as stuff like Facebook and snapchat...meanwhile research is losing money...
Re: What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation?
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
seems to me most of that can be traced back to the electric generator/motor. Without it, the rest of them becomes impractical or impossible.
I think we could always find a thing that made the next big innovations possible. Newton said that we are standing on the shoulders of giants. I also wondered the other day if humanity could rebuild the current level of technology given a select team of our brightest and all available knowledge, but no tools or machines. We would have to recreate so much in lock step to event get to the most basic things. Just think…
There is one book doing that: http://the-knowledge.org/en-gb/the-book/ It's a great book.
Re: What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation?
#37Now.
I guess that means innovation ends now too.
Re: What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation?
#38Probably depends on what constitutes innovation and the time scale. It could be argued that language, agriculture, money, etc. have changed people lives than more dramatically than recent technology.
Re: What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation?
#39In practical terms of impacting the greatest % of the population, some data that I'd like to have seen here are around life expectancy:
- Life expectancy, men/women
- Infant mortality
- Accidental death
- Death by illness/disease
- Death by military conflict
For example:
- Life expectancy (US, men & women average)
1870: 35.1 years
1920: 54.1
1970: 70.9
2012: 78.7
The most years gained were 1870 - 1920.
As for military conflict, innovation happens in politics and diplomacy as well as technology. I'd like to see how innovations in politics and diplomacy have impacted death by military conflict as military technology become increasingly lethal.
Re: What Was the Greatest Era for Innovation?
#40The printing press, and its proliferation a few hundred years ago. Without it, the cost of copying information is enormous. When you can't copy stuff cheaply, you end up copying only a few things. Like what whoever is in power likes. Or whatever the accepted wisdom of the day is. With it, you can have ideas, spread them, and get feedback from a lot of people. That goes for social ideas like liberalism, religious idea…
I agree that information (communication) is fundamental to human society. But I don't agree that information technology is a force for equality and decentralization of power. Over the course of history it's been the opposite - papyrus enabled the the expansion of the Roman empire, the nation state could not exist without paper and printing, and digitalization is creating larger multinational corporations than was pos…
This is an excellent oberservation but I would point out that all of your examples are of one group having a large information technology advantage over another. I think the situation could be different as very powerful IT becomes as widespread and inexpensive as seems to be the trend. Perhaps there is some point where the worst IT is good enough that it's hard to parlay a tech advantage into any form of oppression and at that point it's a tool for equality and decentralization.